"Imagine if you suddenly learned that the people, the places, the moments most important to you were not gone, not dead, but worse, had never been. What kind of hell would that be?"

"Tiger got to hunt, bird got to fly;
Man got to sit and wonder 'why, why, why?'
Tiger got to sleep, bird got to land;
Man got to tell himself he understand."

"There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable.

There is another which states that this has already happened."

"When you reach the end of your rope, tie a knot in it and hang on.”

- Thomas Jefferson

Axe!!

Akshotapuram... Axe effect... nautanki... From clearing misconceptions about each other to talking day in and day out on the phone... and conferencing online... discussing our chefs!!
Everything we did was similar... isomerism... and yet different. Zany as hell... one fine day we decided to go to the US... take GRE and TOEFL... CBT.... and put the onus of cooking on the other... or take the chefs along...

And then nostalgic outings... moving out of college in a clandestine manner... and meeting at the metro station... wonder what we were intending to do... Ohhh I so miss that time now... and then CP!! Our specialty days... Look your "something" best days...

Masala Junction... Wisdom Mart... CCD after TOEFL... Coded talks... wow!! I miss them all... Plans which we coudn't realize... UPenn... UMCP...

Stupid songs... which I enjoy making fun of... Senti discussions... which ended in tears...
Kudos to you moti!!
:)

Avantika

2003-2007 and hoping it continues... :)


By no doubt, the most beautiful and beautifood time of my life. Engineering. College. The best times. There was practically no need to say anything. My gussa/happiness and every other emotion was quite evident to a"bh"antika, it seems.

To think of it, the 1st year passed by without much camaraderie. 2nd year was accompanied with lots of His and Hellos.. The trip after... Bangalore... And we knew we've met our match... And thereon begins the journey to every nook and corner of the city... There was scope for going out and having fun with everyone... But sigh... our plans never materialized...

And here we had... 2 people completely alike. To the very core. The only difference being the pizza outlet preferred. There had been a difference of liking for jalapenos... But that vanished by the end of college :D

Never can think of what led to the gradual or not so gradual bond between us.. But it was fun throughout. We had misunderstandings, and naraazgi, and what not. No verbal fights though. And no cat-fight (although we were privileged to witness one in class...alas, no camera to record it). Hehe.

The C.L. times were good too... more of the Keventers times actually. And all the food... and shopping... and comment-passing...

Some moments which still make me laugh out loud...
The way we used to run back and walk again... just to see how chussa hua aam types somebody's boyfriend looks.
The same procedure being used to comment on the "babes" of igit.
Your chinki talks...which ended up in the official nomenclature "Chinki".
Momo-point... hogging on chicken momos and crispy spicy potatoes (I'm sure I'm still naming the dish incorrectly)
Being called "sisters" (lol)... courtesy Neha Singhal
The dull clothes episode... courtesy "Mamma-ne-kaha hai"
Clandestine photographs... IGIT cartoons
Ending up wearing same clothes every morning... with you rushing back to the hostel at 10 to change :D
.... and so many more.

It was good to see you again in Mumbai... Probably the major reason I was glad to be going to NITIE was the proximity of your place... It was fun... shopping and eating at Subway.
In fact, an extension of the above was when the first thing I checked about P&G's Mumbai office was how far it is from Hira Nandani. Lol. Hope to see you then too.

No words can actually describe how I light I used to feel after talking to you. How effective the bitching-sessions used to be! And it was surely wonderful, and still is, to have a friend like you. Wish we could have spent more time together.

The last sip is still yours. You know, kahin koi iss duniya mein "sunder" ho raha hoga!
Miss you dear :(

PS- Bhookh lagi hai. Kuch achha khaane chalte hain.

Some people really matter a lot... They possess great extra-ordinary powers (not the Heroes kind though). They'll make you laugh... and cry... and smile... and jump... and remember... out of nowhere. Happens with me quite frequently. I'm sitting and reading a book... and then suddenly I remember someone... and start missing him/her. And the process is, well, completely random. From this post onwards, I shall write about a few such people in my life... who just make it more beautiful.
:)

PS - they will be in no particular order.

Senseless senses..

Chaos. Utter chaos. Life. Priorities. Let go. Understand. Hate. Discover. Cry. Smile.
What probably was being said was true. Summers do open your eyes. Not only about your "core competencies", but more about the people surrounding you. People who pretend to be your friends. And all they can say is crap. All they can think is crap.
And at the same time, you find people who make you realize what I have been doing is right. That I should not care about these "shitty" people!

I acknowledge today that I made a huge huge mistake, thinking that a particular person is a friend... what she turned out to be was entirely opposite. I thank her for showing her true colors in the 2nd month of MDI... Now I know who to cut off myself from.

So its another 4-day gap between classes... The end result is what I wanted.

Today I finally realize that a stone is what I have to become when it comes to people like the ones I had been hanging out with during my first few weeks in MDI.. So long!

The Instant Noodles Theory

Ahem ahem... In a different writing mood tonight... somehow unexpected (by me too!).. But so it is.. And here it goes...



Instant noodles... Maggi... 2 minutes... In effect, thats all the time it takes for you to have your "inner soul" shouting whether you like the other person or not... Gut feeling i can call it... But its somewhere beyond that point where gut feeling ceases to be logical (ohh yes, its logical at times!)... And thats how it is...
Just like maggi can't be prepared in 2minutes... but it does sell with the 2minute funda... thats how my instant noodle theory works...
It fails... a number of times... But i don't regret it... for I have the alibi ready... "it was this feeling I had".

Somehow to think of it... and extending beyond categorizing people... I do a lot of things spontaneously... 12 jan 2006 for instance...!
:D
And then... I do figure out a reason for it... at least most of the times...
Ohh its a good world... I guess!

"And I don't want the world to see me..
Coz I don't think that they'll understand"

There is no combination of words I could put on the back of a postcard
No song that I could sing but I can try for your heart
Our dreams and they are made out of real things
Like a shoebox of photographs with sepia-toned loving

Love is the answer at least for most of the questions in my heart
Why are we here? And where do we go? And how come it's so hard?
It's not always easy and sometimes life can be deceiving
I'll tell you one thing, it's always better when we're together

It's always better when we're together
Yeah we'll look at the stars when we're together
Well it's always better when we're together
Yeah!! it's always better when we're together
(Jack Johnson)

Been a long time since I wrote something... Not that things haven't been going on in my mind... But I have fallen for the lazy trap... Procrastinating all along... Till yesterday I finally decided to pour it all again...

Somehow I feel MDI has taken away a part of me... two infact... the habit of reading non-stop... and...
Come December... and it shall be good...
:)

"When memories exceed dreams, the end is near."
But what if they already did...and I have been unable to capture the whole picture? What if things have been haywire for long and wanted to reconcile everything? What if the end is already here and I just have to lock the door behind me?

I am.

Hyphen Intacto

(TOI - 26/sept/07)

Has the hyphen — that tiny punctuational drawbridge linking two otherwise unrelated words — become an endangered species? In the geostrategic sphere, Washington’s famous (or infamous, depending on your point of view) ‘hyphenated’ India-Pakistan equation has been dropped from the global political lexicon. Whether or not the nuclear deal with the US (which the Indian Left is doing its best to stymie) comes through or not, Washington is unlikely to once again equate India — whose 60th birthday is causing champagne corks to pop in New York, London and just about everywhere else — with its coeval, Pakistan, which seems inexorably to be sliding into chaos. So in Uncle Sam’s vocabulary regarding the subcontinent, the once ubiquitous hyphen is as dead as the dodo. Unfortunately for it, the hyphen isn’t faring better in the larger sphere of English usage. The latest edition of the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary — that Michelin guide of what’s cooking semantically in the anglophone world — has dropped the hyphen from no less than 16,000 words. So ‘fig-leaf’ has dropped the ‘fig-leaf’ of the hyphen and become ‘fig leaf’, and ‘pot-belly’ has cut the umbilical cord of the intervening sign and is now officially ‘pot belly’. In other cases, the hyphen has been squeezed out of existence by the merger of previously hyphenated words: ‘pigeon-hole’ has been reborn in the amalgamated avatar of ‘pigeonhole’, and ‘leap-frog’ has turned into ‘leapfrog’.

Perhaps in an increasingly permissive linguistic environment where SMS-ese and other verbal shortcuts have become the order of the day, the hyphen is seen as a quaint relic of the past, rather like the hymen, the sign of female virginity, whose loss is held to be of no great account in a social climate amenable to casual (but safe) sex and live-in (should that now be ‘live in’?) relationships. Will the hyphen survive this all-pervasive onslaught? The answer might lie in the second last word of the last sentence: ‘all-pervasive’, a portmanteau adjective describing the subsequent word, ‘onslaught’. ‘Pot belly’ might be fine. But when you want to describe a person with such a belly you may find you have to have recourse to the adjectival ‘pot-bellied man’. Similarly, a ‘fine-tooth comb’ (a comb with closely designed teeth) is very different from a ‘fine tooth comb’ (presumably a handsome device for combing one’s teeth). While such distinctions matter, the hyphen will remain intacto.

Delhi ... Le-gennn-dary!!

Delhi is the best Indian city to live

(from ET)

MUMBAI: Riding on its high quality of life, transportation infrastructure and overall labour force contributing to its economic growth, Delhi has emerged on top among 48 Indian cities, including Mumbai, as the best place to reside, according to a report by Ernst & Young.

The report, which took into consideration 57 parameters before arriving at the conclusion, said between Delhi and Greater Mumbai, the national capital takes the lead on city prosperity index due to its lower population and hence higher per capita income. Delhi also indicates greater propensity to save earnings and lower credit growth.

The consultancy firm's findings were unveiled by Urban Development Minister S Jaipal Reddy at the Ficci-organised International Real Estate Summit here today.

On the business environment index as well, Delhi out scored all other cities as it has a large workforce and more number of management garduates, people employed in trade and services and other business activity as compared to most of the other major cities such as Mumbai, Chennai and Bangalore.

However, on the urban governance index, Greater Mumbai top-scored, leaving Delhi at the second spot.

"Delhi has arguably the best infrastructure in India. It has out-performed almost all cities on all the indcators that comprised the infrastructure index," the report said lauding its road network and social infrastructure, including hospital and educational institutes.

Heroes

And I thought it would be a loser sitcom... But it was great... Yes I love super heroes... they are my escape from this reality... But theres something beyond superheroes... Theres more to Harry Potter than what you see... Theres more to life than what you can feel...


Theres always more; and yet we never try to find that out... I want to fall off the roof and know that it hurts... And I want to run through the rain and know that it cuts my eyes... I want to go off alone and know how I survive... I want to dive into the ocean and see how long I can breathe...

Theres always an Aragon... and a Dumbledore... There is always a hero... There is always an adventure...

Its sad to see very few people who want to live an adventure... Why do people even ask questions like "Where do you see yourself 5 years from now?" Its the worst question that could exist... Why should I plan my life and then live it? Life is an adventure... its the longest rollercoaster that could possibly exist... And yet we fail to do justice to it... Why do we think?

Eyes,
Missed the last train home
Birds pass by to tell me that im not alone
Well im pushing myself to finish this part
I can handle a lot
But one thing i miss
Its in your eyes

Have you seen this film
It reminds me of walking through the avenues
Well I'm washing my hands of attachments, yeah
I will land on the ground
But the one thing i miss
Is in your eyes

I just love the way Genesis starts... The simplest of all questions... and the one that can drive us mad... I am not same as the others... And thats what I am... I am not you...

Its special out there.... ohhh yes it is...
:)

And then... we are back to taking exams... Ohh I so hate statistics...
:(
May I pass the stats exam... rest I should be able to handle..
Amen.

Reliable...!?! The term we've used so very often... for C++ and Java.. and in software engineering... along with such terminology as robust and platform (in)dependent et all..

Red: Let me tell you something my friend. Hope is a dangerous thing. Hope can drive a man insane.

Ahhhh.. I so absolutely hate this dialogue... sends more than just a shiver down the spine... The effect is more than a mere rethink process... its a whole journey retraversed... And so with this, I go down the memory lane... with a little (okay, big) wish at the back of my mind... that I shall traverse this road again as if it were new...

In life, we'll all eventually get what we all need...and maybe what we all want... But then u'll always feel theres something amiss.. and thats what you have left behind...

I didn't get what I needed...and surely not what I wanted... You didn't either... But we left each other behind... to traverse the same path separately... Why? Ain't that illogical?

"I was thinking about another kind of river, one that runs through everyone of us, no matter where we come from, all over the world. It's the river of the heart, and the heart's desire. It's the pure, essential truth of what each one of us is, and can achieve. All my life I'd been a fighter. I was always ready, too ready, to fight for what I loved, and against what I deplored. In the end, I became the expression of that fight, and my real nature was concealed behind a mask of menace and hostility."

Today was a day of anomalies...
My mood: quiet
Song: coldplay..fix you...

When you try your best but you don't succeed
When you get what you want but not what you need
When you feel so tired but you can't sleep
Stuck in reverse

And the tears come streaming down your face
When you lose something you can't replace
When you love someone but it goes to waste
Could it be worse?

Hmmm...Think....

The last time you talk...seems like a farce...and wiggling your head sideways...you look behind you... and see theres nothing left... just an empty space...
All this while you'd thought theres something with you...but then its all a lie..
LIFE is a big lie... everytime theres something happening, I try to feel I can take control... that I can make things work the way they should ideally... but woooooosh!! Life takes over... or would we attribute that to fate?

Till what extent can one believe in faith? I, for one, never did...but at this very moment...I wish it turns in my favour...which implies by itself that somewhere down the line..I have come to believe in it...though my conscious mind doesn't allow me to think so...

Talking about life and fate... where does this all lead to? Wouldn't it be better to have nothing than have some sadness? I would surely prefer that...whether it means that I appreciate the happy times or not...

Why am I so optimistic about certain things? Why can't I accept life on the face of it? Why do I try to challenge everything that life throws down on me? Why???

In the boat..struggling to find balance, we soon discovered that the boat had started sinking..
Not losing hope, we decided to wait and find out whats irrelevant on the boat and throw it out..

But nothing happened...and you lost hope...decided to call it quits...
So I threw out stuff...hoping you'd stay...I threw away my self respect...my ego...my pride...my independence... but it didn't stay afloat...
I went further to throw away my friends...one by one...till I was left with the closest ones...

And then you threw me off it...

The best 5 moments in my life..

#5 The moment I knew I it would be me for myself..

#4 When we all cut the cake to inaugurate Zenith'06.

#3 When I saw my sweet lil bro...14/may/1998 :)

#2 When I solved your cryptographic code...24/July/2006

#1 The day I met you..

"it ain't worth it"...
And the words ring in my head over and over and over again..The voice isn't mine though...But the tears are...
My question is..how can we decide beforehand whether something is worth our effort and time...Thats what time is doing for us (outsourcing)... How can we say something isn't worthwhile? How can it be when you, in the first place, don't want it to be worthwhile.. When you're looking for that one not-so-perfect moment...and then SNAP!...
Who are you? And who am I?
That, my dear, is the question..

Just when we think we got all the answers of life... life changes the question!

The only way to survive is one person who truly loves us. And I have you. I will wait for you. Always.

... and here on i begin...

The rock hit the plain ground .. apparently it had fallen from the high mountains.. Broke into pieces.. rolled down the road.. Dust and smaller pieces.. Got under the feet of people .. Flew away with the dust storm.. Landed at the doormat of an office.. Flew into the eyes of a child.. Washed away with the sea water..

But I'm going to collect it all.. I'll bring it all together..

'Cause baby,
There ain't no mountain high enough
Ain't no valley low enough
Ain't no river wide enough
To keep me from getting to you babe..

:)

The FOOD routine..

Once upon a time .. two bhookhi females met in igit... and hereon started the daily eating in-and-out, eating here-and-there routine .. which I'm sure we both miss ..

The following was our daily routine.. which made us realize within a few days that we live (and love) to eat ..

Time: 8:30am
Venue: my home
Event: missed call to avantika (an indication that I have started from my place)

Time: 8:45am
Venue: Inderlok metro station
Event: another missed call to avantika (an indication that I'm half way to the coll)

Time: 8:55 am
Venue: walking down along the monkey road
Event: continous missed calls (an indication to avantika that she better come down from her room)

Time: 9:00am
Venue: Outside electrical block
Event: Drink khus and orange squash (and occassionally glucose or lemon juice)

Time: 9:50am
Venue: Last bench of room E-308
Event: avan and I receive a missed call.. whoa! aggarwal is here.. going to come to the class via the loo!

Time: 10:00am
Venue: Yokohama/Handa aunty .. and HPMC
Event: go to aunty... see theres nothing good to drink .. next stop HPMC .. drink cold coffee.. agg buys juice..

Time: 11:00am
Venue: E-308
Event: Eat day schi food.. (hostelers really relish that). I complain to agg to get yummy sabzis. Agg makes a prominent idiotic face. We three eat (with occasional attacks coming from meghna, sonal and gang and priyakshi and khushboo).
My lunch: aloo / fried rice / such yummy food
Agg's lunch: karela / brinjal / beans ... :(

Time: 1:00pm
Venue: outside electrical block
Event: agg going back home .. lol. Avan n i pop up our fav ques .. which is one of the following:

• Bhookh lagi hai!
• "Mass bunkkkkk"
• Kuch achha khaana hai..
• Kahin bahar chalte hain...

.. and so begins our expedition .. to fill up (infact overfill) our empty stomachs..

Momo point @ Knags
THE best .. by far .. the best momos in india.. and decent prices .. We eat and relish veg steamed momos and chicken momos (steamed) .. and the red chilli sauce .. and spicy chilli potatoes .. and chilli garlic noodles .. and prawns .. chopsuey .. sweet 'n' sour .. yum yum yum! Its finger licking .. and hotttt!

34 Chaurangee Lane @ Knags
Yummy rolls... egg roll .. chicken roll... mouth watering ..

Omlettes @ Knags
Before this place, we never knew all that can be made from eggs .. and its delicious .. eat and eat and eattt...

Chuski @ Knags
Crushed ice iced with different colored syrups .. red and yellow and green .. eat it and spoil your clothes (waise bhi mom is going to wash it.. so.. go ahead)

Bunta @ Kgate
Outside the college .. and in the bara bazaar.. masala wala bunta ..

Kulche chhole @ Kgate
"Bhaiya .. kulche zyada fry nahi ... n chhole mein bahot zyada mirch .. and lotsa achaar and onion .. make it very spicy" !

Mango shake with ice cream @ Kgate
Our savior during summers.. its heavy.. and our say.. get loads of tinned cherry and dry fruits sprinkled over it!

Golgappas .. aloo chaat .. bharwa golgappas ... and all unhygienic food @Kgate
Boy!... That sure has increased our body's immunity .. with the yum factor

Rabri @ MLTR, Kgate
Lick your lips .. after this for sure.. though this was an occasional destination..


CP, Pitampura, Chandni Chowk, and other eating outlets to be covered tomorrow..

Lost .. season 2.. don't remember the episode no.:
Hurley thinking..
Jin and the clucks' chicken: "Life's going to change now.."

And it has.. its somehow the same thing we try to fight against... until the day Rose comes in and tells us to accept it.

July 9 2007 .. 00.09 hrs.. A call.. A friend.. and the conversation.. shocking..
And i can't till the present minute.. There are some really close people .. whom to love to see together.. whom you HAVE seen together for a long long time..
And then.. one day.. things change.

I've never seen someone as happy as my friends X and Y .. I miss both of you.. And I hope I shall see you again.. as you were.. as we all were.. as we were happy.. as you were together.. as we were together.. i hope..

ahem ahem... venturing on to people... i divide all the homo sapiens on this planet (and in the universe) into 4 categories...
1. people i don't know..and hence, don't care about
2. people i know exist..but don't care about
3. people i know and care about
4. my lovely little kids...i.e. people i really love...

Now is the time to place people in each category... though they keep making minor shifts...from one category to another... and sometimes moving onto an altogether different category .. which is, for now, facing the error..

Hmmm..category 1 would be like...most of the junta.. i don't know you... I don't care about you... Now the question is the definition of knowing a person... keep guessing..!

Category 2... ohhh lots of people fall into this one too... ! Category 3 and 4 are my favorites... at least the people are... so category 4 (not in any specific order):

• aadith
• ankur
• sandy
• avantika
• keeda
• aggarwal
• saurav
• kshitij
• sanyal

And category 3.. well... some people here too... and now I am getting too lazy to write down their names... so this shall be continued..
amen.

when you are where you stand.. but don't wish to stand..
when you see what you can.. but don't wish to see it..
when you ...

:|

THE date !

So its going to be 07/07/07 tomorrow.. well one day I won't be mistaking the date format for sure... no mm/dd/yy or a dd/mm/yy.. though i still prefer the mm/dd/yy format... :)

As always, all the papers are crammed up with "auspicious" implications of the day... Seems this time the international authorities have been appealed by the "event" too...! The 7 new wonders of the world... wow!

My take: may the happy-ever-after times return .. and continue.. :)

I don't know who you are.. I don't know who I am..

splash ...

need more water to cut through the ciliary muscles.. they need to wake up.... they need to realize things are different now... and why is my mind hoping they'll revert back?

maybe it will be fine... maybe it won't be..

INTERACTIONS !!

for me,.. the word has for long meant the nursery rhyme "old MacDonald had a farm"... with a chit chat here... a blah blah here... here a blah .. there a blah.. everywhere a blah blah..

but well... 8 days in mumbai... and i know something now... ohh i miss mumbai... despite the sick food... and the weird "mosquitoes"... i miss the place... the campus was amazing... the best i have ever seen... it was serene... and calm... and the people were nice... and friendly...
ohh am already missing some of them here...

hmmm... back to what i learnt... i made new friends...

back to studies now!!

Why Murthy should not become Prez

A different point of view...and at the same time an interesting one..

(TOI : 17/may/07)


With a presidential election looming on the horizon, many commentators have been bemoaning the fact that it increasingly seems the Rashtrapati Bhavan will once again be occupied by a politician. Why, goes the refrain, can’t we have a non-neta, a citizen who is a credit to India?

Usually, these commentators conclude by unilaterally nominating N R Narayana Murthy as their candidate for President of India. Of course, none of them ever see fit to check with the man himself, whether he would be interested in the job. In fact, making Murthy the President would be singularly bad news for him, Infosys and India.

Here’s why: Murthy is a man of drive and vision; an entrepreneur who creates wealth. He may no longer be officially involved with the day-to-day running of Infosys but he remains its foremost brand ambassador and his numerous social activities generate enormous goodwill for the company.

As chief mentor of Infosys, he inspires a new generation of young IT whizzes to propel the company to ever greater heights. All this is great for Infosys, since it helps the organisation make more money. It also has a multiplier effect on the economy, by creating new jobs and generating higher salaries. And — while it may not be his primary motivation — it is also good for Murthy, since it increases the value of his Infosys shares.

Now imagine for a moment that Murthy was made President. Given his high ethical levels, he’d promptly sever all ties with Infosys, which would be extremely bad news for the company. A great entrepreneur who can create so much wealth for India would be reduced to hosting tea parties for foreign dignitaries with unpronounceable names — which would be a tragic loss for the economy and the country.

Murthy likes to stay low profile, while notching up major achievements. The office of the President, as designed by our founding fathers, functions exactly opposite to his preferred style. Rashtrapatiji, whoever he might be, participates in lots of activities that are accompanied with pomp and splendour, but end up achieving precious little.

So why not let Murthy get on with doing constructive things for the nation and install a regular neta as President? That would have an additional benefit: Since the Prez act ally can’t get anything done, it means there’ll be one less neta around to muck up the country.

Telecast in India is unwatchable

(from TOI...28/apr/07..)

by Steve Waugh, Former Captain of Australia (...And my role model)


I am leaving India tonight after a few days in Chennai, Bangalore and Mumbai. There is no doubt that the enthusiasm for cricket in general and the World Cup in particular has diminished. It’s a direct reaction to India’s exit from the World Cup, so I hope that once India win a few games, the passion and interest will reach fever pitch again.

However, the custodians of the game in India must protect it against the over-commercialisation taking place on television. It is annoying, ridiculous and an insult to the game to see an advertisement being squeezed in just because the bowler has not reached the top of his run-up. The telecast in India is unwatchable, and since I was watching the game at a bar with a few others, I could see that I was not the only one put off by the advertisements. Youngsters are missing out on vital commentary, since most comments are cut off the minute an over is called, or when a wicket falls. These are not good signs for Indian cricket, and somebody needs to protect the game from becoming devalued in this manner. Everybody must remember that the advertisers are there to promote the game, the game cannot be reduced to a vehicle that promotes the advertisers.




Hope this pinches the Indians and we wake up from our slumber...

Denial of service. Denial of rights.

The frail body woke up...to witness being deprived of the right to have a free opinion.

"slow down ohh you crazy child...
take the hook off the phone and disappear for a while..."

random pattern

Yesterday, i realized there isn't any need to write anymore...for my soul is with me and i can speak to my soul...but then 40 minutes later...it all changed...i heard my soul say that it can't listen to me forever and it needs sometime alone...so here i am..back to pavilion...with another hope thrashed...

the most amazing pics ever...hats off to ali khurshid !! (click on d name)

Click the pic for more... (from www.time.com)

Books...

You see my birthday is approaching...for that or any arbit reason...anyone gifting me the following is welcome:

1. The 9/11 Commission Report
2. Steve Waugh's autobiography
3. David A. Vise's The Google Story
   
4. Bill Gates Business @ the speed of Thought
   
5. Hillary Clinton's autobiography
6. Thomas Friedman's The World is Flat
7. Christopher Paolini's Eragon
8. Christopher Paolini's Eldest
9. Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 911
10. Salman Rushdie's Shalimar The Clown
11. Salman Rushdie's Step Across The Line
12. Joseph E. Stiglitz's Making Globalization Work
13. Some Orhan Pamuk titles
    
14. Ayn Rand's Virtue of Selfishness
15. Ayn Rand's Anthem
16. Amy Tan's Saving Fish from Drowning

I guess the above list would suffice for now...

At times, there is something everyone needs to do...spend time with oneself and look back...seclusion, at times, is not something that reflects insanity...However gregarious I may appear to be, I know I am not...maybe I am...but surely not most of the times...

A certain level of seclusion...isolation is necessary for sanity...

Revisting the year ..

Year 2006

Ponder Ponder

If i had a dream and you had a dream and both dreamt of each other, how would we know who was dreaming whom and who was more real than the other?
If you woke up whiile dreaming of me even as i dreamt of you, would i disappear? and if i disappeared, then how can you, a part of my dream, still be around?
ponder ponder ...

"Published" with consent

My to do list ..

1. start studyin...for (well this is going to be a listtt) XAT...FMS..
2. my "darlin'" project...playing ping pong at the moment...
3. do something worthwhile..wht exactly...dnt knw... ( do suggest somethin)

thats all I can remember for now..though the above is definitely not an exhaustive list !

Tree of Life

From TOI: 25 Dec 2006


The modern custom of decorating the Christmas tree has been traced back to a more recent tradition in 1570 where a small fir was decorated with apples, nuts, dates, pretzels and paper flowers, by a German guild of craftsmen. Their children collected the dainties on Christmas day.

It is believed that the tradition of the Christmas tree has its origins in an ancient pagan ritual celebrating renewal of life. The Christmas tree is usually an evergreen coniferous tree, a variety of fir or pine that retains its leaves all year round. Some species such as the ‘Glastonbury thorn’ flowered for a second time during Christmas and this flowering was considered ‘miraculous’, according to some mediaeval legends.
In modern celebrations, the Christmas tree has become more of an object than a symbol of life. Nowadays, trees are seen in shops as early as October. Some trees are sold live with roots, so that they may be planted later and enjoyed for years. However, the process of digging up a tree with its roots is complex and the survival of these trees is low. Most people, therefore, use a cut tree which comes from a Christmas tree farm. It takes about 10 years for a tree to grow to a size where it can be used for Christmas. In 2002, in America alone, there were about 22,000 Christmas tree farms and nearly 4,50,000 acres of land was used to grow these trees.

Natural trees, however, come with a host of problems such as the potential for catching fire and causing allergies, besides being fairly expensive. Predictably, plastic has taken over, and artificial trees made out of PVC are now becoming increasingly popular. Artificial trees come in a variety of colours and species and even pre-decorated with lights. After Christmas they can be neatly packed away for use again the following year.

In this voyage from a real unsheared tree, originally harvested from the wild, the Christmas tree has come a long way to now being grown like a crop, being pruned to have a perfect conical shape and finally being replaced by a completely unnatural substitute. Environmentalists are still debating whether the move to plastic is better or worse for the environment. Although artificial trees can be reused for many years, they are non-biodegradable and eventually end up in landfills. Natural trees, on the other hand, can only be used for a short period but can be recycled into mulch or used as erosion control.

What is also losing value gradually is the deeper symbolism of the tree. While there are several layers of spiritual meaning attached to it, the act of inviting a tree into one’s life could also be seen simply as a reconnection to nature. Although a man-made substitute may be practical and durable, what it can never be is alive. The tradition began at a time when nature was abundant and humans lived with a strong awareness of their dependence on nature. In the present time, as urbanisation takes us further and further away from our natural roots, the custom of the Christmas tree could become a reminder that we are indeed still very much a part of the natural universe.

The Christmas tree could represent all trees and symbolise the very important role that trees play in the survival of life. In each country, a species of tree that is indigenous to that context and which plays an important role as a provider of food and livelihood could be taken to be the Christmas tree. Already, in India, where coniferous trees are limited to higher altitudes, the banana or the mango tree play that role. In Goa, the trunks of palms are decorated with chains of light for Christmas and for New Year.

Rather than cultivating Christmas trees, which increases monoculture and necessitates the use of pesticides, naturally growing ‘wild’ trees should be honoured during Christmas. The ‘gifts’ that are associated with the Christmas tree, could then be seen as gifts that all trees offer so unconditionally.

The Christmas tree, a symbol of renewal of life, may finally come back to where it began, and help humanity reconnect with the source of all that is living, namely Nature.

Lessons learnt... the hard way !!

Quite contrary to the general saying, people prefer to watch others fall and learn from their failures...sounds like the perfect thoughts of a lazy person...sit and wait till the person besides you falls down the pit...watch him down there...analyze where he went wrong and move ahead...

Now it suggested to me when u watch that person-beside-you fall down that pit...don't just stand above watching him and learning all the lessons you ought to...hold out your hand and reach out to him with a smile...

Thats like too pretentious...my first opinion about the "suggested" approach towards life...i mean...you were the person who was waiting this guy would fall...and you'll learn and move ahead...and then you ought to pretend like you are the savior...rescuing this fellow..

Diplomacy...at play...(was going to write at the best...but at the moment I 'm not really sure if it ought to be the "best" or the "worst") Seen it here and there...the perfect shrewd specimen..I have encountered in my life...but never really understood why a person on this planet would need to behave diplomatically...fine...its something that the zany politicians can do...its there work...otherwise they wouldn't be left with anything else to do...

End of philosophy...I decided to give this strange eerie philosophy i shot...and the perfect scenario...I had that chance today...

Though I would still rather be the same frank person most of the time...I do understand where these diplomatic tactics are to be put into implementation...and perhaps the best situations are:
1. when you don't want to be answerable to somebody...or a particular group of people...especially when they DON'T even have a right to interrogate you about topic A and B and C and blah blah..
2. when you want to create a distance between yourself and person2 and yet..don't want to cut off completely.

Its not too tough either...just keep that smile of yours in place...and use that calculative brain of yours...

PS - some more opinion-oriented posts coming up soon..

Harry Potter

Read this people...I hope Harry doesnt die...
Harry Potter...the last book

salty coffee

(a forwarded mail..unlike the usual ones.. so read on..)

He met her on a party. She was so outstanding, many guys chasing after her, while he was so normal, nobody even paid attention to him. At the end of the party, he invited her to have coffee with him, she was surprised, but due to being polite, she promised. They sat in a nice coffee shop, he was too nervous to say anything. She felt uncomfortable, she thought, please, let me go home..suddenly he asked the waiter: "would you please give me some salt? I'd like to put it in my coffee."

Everybody stared at him, so strange! His face turned red, but, still, he put the salt in his coffee and drank it. She asked him curiously: why you have this hobby? He replied: "when I was a little boy, I was living near the sea, I liked playing in the sea, I could feel the taste of the sea , just like the taste of the salty coffee. Now every time I have the salty coffee,I always think of my childhood, think of my hometown, I miss my hometown so much,I miss my parents who are still living there".While saying that tears filled his eyes. She was deeply touched.

That's his true feeling, from the bottom of his heart.A man who can tell out his homesickness, he must be a man who loves home,cares about home, has responsibility of home..Then she also started to speak, spoke about her farawayhometown, her childhood, her family.That was a really nice talk, also a beautiful beginning of their story.

They continued to date.She found that actually he was a man who meets all her demands; he had tolerance, was kind hearted, warm, careful. He was such a good person but she almost missed him! Thanks to his salty coffee! Then the story was just like every beautiful love story, the princess married to the prince, then they were living the happy life... And, every time she made coffee for him, she put some salt in the coffee, as she knew that's the way he liked it.

After 40 years, he passed away, left her a letter which said: "My dearest, please forgive me, forgive my whole life lie. This was the only lie I said to you---the salty coffee. Remember the first time we dated? I was so nervous at that time, actually I wanted some sugar, but I said salt It was hard for me to change so I just went ahead. I never thought that could be the start of our communication! I tried to tell you the truth many times in my life, but I was too afraid to do that, as I have promised not to lie to you foranything.. Now I'm dying, I afraid of nothing so I tell you the truth: I don't like the salty coffee, what a strange bad taste.. But I have had the salty coffee for my whole life! Since I knew you, I never feel sorry for anything I do for you. Having you with me is my biggest happiness for my whole life. If I can live for the second time, still want to know you and have you for my whole life, even though I have to drink the salty coffee again".
Her tears made the letter totally wet.

Someday, someone asked her: what's the taste of salty coffee?
It's sweet. She replied.......

alritos...am in a decent blogging mood tonight...unlike the past few days...when i used to start a post....feeling theres a lot to be written and closing it down (without saving) after a few minutes...

today...is definitely different...probably because i have been thinking...and now i have a certain level of confidence in what is happening around me...dont know the exact reasons...but the cruz of the matter is that i feel GOOD!...and it feels nice!!

to all the people i care....my bachas...it feels great to have you all around...

ummm....getting to the point...the frustration i wanted to vent out...the thoughts i wanted to pour down on my blog...FEMALES ARE CRAZZZZY!!
this blog might not be the right place to write down about people in my life...its "public"...but then who else is gonna read it?...apart from me and probably those people??...and the "millions" of strangers who read this...its french to them...other than that...who gives a damn if the bitch reads this and feels disappointed that i have stopped mentioning her!!?...bitches like her can actually go to hell...and fuck themselves (they aren't gonna get anyone else for that!)

lets start with...ummm....kanika...probably one of the closest friends i have in college...and to date...i confess...shes a mystery...thinks strangely...but understands me...and has stood by me in times when i didnt even knew i had a friend besides me...hats off to you girl!...hope you get past that pre-CAT stage...and transform back to the normal vella-maroing female i knew some time back...

now theres baba...khubsu baba...another mysterious character...with loads of misunderstandings and walls standing between the two of us..hoping they'll finally fall down this semester...kal ho naa ho!!

a few people i saw with respectful eyes...alas...not anymore...

past few days...found i carry a lot of importance to a few people...(read insects).. :) ur an amazing person too keeda...

and my cutest bacha...or rather bache....my fav trio on this planet...or rather quadruple...aadi, ankur, sandy and anvay...ankur is the best!!...

:)

that's all folks...see you later, alligator...

PS - the blogging mood just ended...for tonight...

current fav...

Chasing Cars

We'll do it all
Everything
On our own

We don't need
Anything
Or anyone
If I lay here
If I just lay here
Would you lie with me and just forget the world?

I don't quite know
How to say
How I feel

Those three words
Are said too much
they're not enough

If I lay here
If I just lay here
Would you lie with me and just forget the world?

Forget what we're told
Before we get too old
Show me a garden that's bursting into life

Let's waste time
Chasing cars
Around our heads

I need your grace
To remind me
To find my own

If I lay here
If I just lay here
Would you lie with me and just forget the world?

Forget what we're told
Before we get too old
Show me a garden that's bursting into life

All that I am
All that I ever was
Is here in your perfect eyes, they're all I can see

I don't know where
Confused about how as well
Just know that these things will never change for us at all

If I lay here
If I just lay here
Would you lie with me and just forget the world?

GaRFieLD !!

sometimes ...

(for a friend..i hope she reads this...)

Let's see ... What is heartbreak? What does it mean to have your heart broken? Is it something from which a relationship cannot ever recover? Is the definition of heartbreak an irreparable schism that forces two lovers apart, never to be together again?

I don't believe so. A relationship is made up of days and weeks and months and years of interacting with each other. Interacting when wonderful things happen, interacting when horrible things happen. A day is made up of thousands of words, glances, touches and movements. Not every single one of those is going to be happy or loving or sweet.

People hurt each other. People act selfishly. People act unexpectedly. People do things without thinking, without filtering their thoughts. It's inevitable that these things will cause two normally ecstatic lovers to glare at each other, scream at each other, maybe even slam doors and throw things at each other from time to time. Hearts break all the time to varying degrees.

What matters is whether or not those lovers are invested in mending their broken hearts together instead of separately.

If to you heartbroken literally means 'having broken up', then I'd have to say that I have been (and still am) in a relationship where I have not had my heart broken. But that feels silly to say. Plenty of people remain in relationships that should not exist, and I'd be willing to bet that their hearts are plenty broken so the yardstick of 'together or not' doesn't work for me.

Maybe I'm too literal. Maybe I'm not literal enough.

"I’m hungry. I’m tired. I’m bored. I’m restless. I’m uncomfortable.

Never am I more vulnerable to temptation, anger, impatience, irritability, presumption and despair than when in these states. And never am I more the seeker to be free from these conditions by pacifying my flesh, than in these seasons."

she hoped ...

she hoped that day that it would rain...that it would rain and she would smell the freshly soaked earth...that it would rain and she would try catching a glimpse of that rare rainbow...that it would rain and she would see the grey skies...and that night, she slept with that hope...but it didn't rain...
she being the person she was, wished for the skies to pour the next day... but they didn't...so she wished and hoped the next day...and the next...and the next...

tired...she lost hope and decided to seclude herself...seclude herself from the rest...not to look up at the skies like the others...not to hope that the first rain drop would touch her face...and that night...she slept without her usual wish...

she shut the windows and the door...to resist that temptation inside her...to look at the skies...

and that day it rained...

the past few days...have gone racing by...the files and vivas n syllabus makes little sense right now...despite the exams' dagger hanging overhead now...

its been a different time altogether...say the past 6-7 days....as though i've seen life in a different light...n now...i want to delve into the issues...to explore the pros and cons...

recently...i again saw the bitchy irritating and diplomatic side of females...n its pathetic...they r true bitches...each and every one of them in IGIT...the status ought to be converted to a bitching institute...
there was CAT...went OK...infact better than i expected and deserved...

and despite all this...i walked this road with people i never knew so well...with people i know are my friends...with whom i never got to spend a lot of time...but theres something connecting us...sanyal...bengali...rammy mummy...

spending the last year in college is strange...unique is the experience in its own sense....at least for me...for on one hand, i am relieved i wont have to see these hypocrite faces after 6 months...and yet...thinking where would my small gang be...!!

(taken from: rahul)

i came across this article on the internet...

Child Abuse

Abuse is not just something that's learned from living with abusive parents. Suffering through abuse also appears to permanently lower the brain's production of an important regulator of emotions called serotonin. Low serotonin can make people more prone to acts of rejection, impulsive aggression and violence.

shattered...the glass shatters...yet again...some problem in my hand...keep throwing the ball at the glass again...wht don't i see it yet??...why don't i realise that it ain't resilient?..

or do i see it?..

questions and questions...with no answers...

Our very own chin2 bacha n amby bacha in the papers....

(from TOI - DT - 11/oct/06)

What do you think of India being ranked first in greasing hands all across the world?

“It works both ways. Bribes are paid as there are people who accept it willingly. You cannot always blame government officials. The situation is grim but not beyond redemption. The public can be of some help by not giving bribes.”
Amber Nagar I 21 I Student

“I think we need to consciously think about this social evil. And if nothing is done to root it out, it might get worse. Self-restraint, stricter laws and transparency in the system are the only ways to do away with corruption in India.”
Chinmay Bijwe I 21 I Student

AIR SUPPLY - All out of love

I'm lying alone with my head on the phone
Thinking of you till it hurts
I know you hurt too but what else can we do
Tormented and torn apart
I wish I could carry your smile and my heart
For times when my life feels so low
It would make me believe what tomorrow could bring
When today doesn't really know, doesn't really know


I 'm all out of love, I'm so lost without you
I know you were right believing for so long
I 'm all out of love, what am I without you
I can't be too late to say that I was so wrong


I want you to come back and carry me home
Away from this long lonely nights
I'm reaching for you, are you feeling it too
Does the feeling seem oh so right
And what would you say if I called on you now
And said that I can't hold on
There's no easy way, it gets harder each day
Please love me or I'll be gone, I'll be gone

I 'm all out of love, I'm so lost without you
I know you were right believing for so long
I 'm all out of love, what am I without you
I can't be too late to say that I was so wrong

Oh, what are you thinking of?
What are you thinking of?
Oh, what are you thinking of?
What are you thinking of?

I 'm all out of love, I'm so lost without you
I know you were right believing for so long
I 'm all out of love, what am I without you
I can't be too late to say that I was so wrong

I 'm all out of love, I'm so lost without you
I know you were right believing for so long
I 'm all out of love, what am I without you
I can't be too late to say that I was so wrong

I 'm all out of love, I'm so lost without you
I know you were right believing for so long
I 'm all out of love, what am I without you
I can't be too late to say that I was so wrong

Was it a mistake to trust u?

"But what if it turns out the wrong way? What if he gets angry?"

"Don't worry, girl...kuch nahi hoga...i'll do something..just wait for 10 minutes."

Kuch nahi hoga...3 mere words...but when heard from a friend...they are the most assuring words. Your heart beat falls down. And you smile. He is my friend after all. He won't let anything happen to me. He'll make sure i'm not interpreted wrong.

So I'm placed next to the wall. An apple on top of my head.

"Just close your eyes. Am I not your friend?"

Ahhh....yes you are :)

So i close my eyes. I know nothing will happen. After all, I have given my trust to you.

1min.

2mins.

Why is it taking time?...Ohhh....he must be taking a proper aim...

:)

I hear something. Something tearing apart the wind.

:)

Here it comes. It'll penetrate the apple. Does the apple have a worm inside? Just like the ones shown in cartoons?

Naaaah.....soup...kabhi toh sensible baatein socha kar....

Something hits me. Whats this?...Maybe the apple broke down...

But what is this?...I feel i'm hurt?...

I open my eyes....to see the blood seeping thru my shirt. I hold my chest. This is a joke right?..I'm dreaming...I start to call you out...but i feel dizzy...at a loss of energy...

I'm goin down...

The arrow...it...it passed through my chest...am i dying?

"wouldn't u save me?...u said kuch nahi hoga....."

I look at you...am i hallucinating?...are you actually smiling?...the same smile which i thought defines you...are you mocking me?...that i was hoodwinked so easily?...or are there tears in your eyes?

And i die...with a single question in my mind..."weren't you my frnd?..why did this happen?"

Fractals

hmmm...i always thought fractals are something way beyond that crappy books - all those Hearn & Baker, Foley, Shaum Series... its something in your mind too...how you read them... when you see them...am sure even the most ghissu of all people don't see mathematical formulas dancing in front of their eyes...its their ideas...performing a ritual in front of them...hovering over them...and persuading them...asking them to believe the interpretation that has been created...

so here are a few fractals..these are ones which generate different thoughts in my mind when i look at them...different moods...different thoughts...different perceptions..

PS - thanks to enthu for refreshing my brain's DRAM, and retrieving the data about fractals...sahi SQL query daali boss!!...

Reading the Coldplay Code

(from an article online)

Chris Martin, lead singer of Coldplay, is a self-proclaimed intellectual nerd. The cover of the band's latest album X&Y may be all the proof we need that he's right.

Shortly after release of the album, a number of the band's fans wondered if there was any particular significance to the arrangement of colored blocks on its cover. It turns out that there is and the blocks are arranged in a code developed in 1874. The code uses visual representations of 1's and 0's in a 5 digit sequence corresponding with particular letters of the alphabet and typographic symbols. It is considered by many to be the first truly digital form of communication and was a primary language used for telegraphy until it was replaced by Morse Code in the 20th Century.

The code was developed by Emile Baudot in 1874 to be used by telegraphers transmitting messages across wires.

To create the code on the cover of the album the colored blocks are arranged in columns. In the lefthand column the black and grey colors are one block, the blank space below it is one block, and the red/orange, orange/green and green/blue combinations below are each one block. A colored block represents a 1 in the binary code and a blank block is a 0. Reading down, the code in the first column is 10111 which represents the letter 'X.' The far right colum reads 10101, the code for the letter 'Y.' The colums in the middle represent the & portion of the album title.

In case you wonder what all the colors mean, it turns out they have no particular meaning and are only included for aesthetic reasons.

Interesting. . .

The main library at Indiana University sinks over an inch every year because when it was built, engineers failed to take into account the weight of all the books that would occupy the building.

"Do you ever get this feeling that no one understands you. The real you, the you that hides deep inside you, that you, you yourself dread? I feel like that. Normally in a day to day life it doesn't show. Its only when I'm depressed, low and lonely that my alinenationcatches up with me."

All this time the Guard was looking at her,
first through a telescope,
then through a microscope,
and then through an opera-glass.
At last he said, "You're travelling the wrong way",
and shut up the window. . .

"For this must ever be
A secret
Kept from all the rest
Between yourself and me."

" In spring, when the woods are getting green,
I'll try and tell you what i mean:
In summer, when the days are long,
Perhaps you'll understand the song."

ohh its back again...why do i feel this way?...over and over again?...and my mind...its all messed up...too much of chaos...things are so haphazard...i cant make out anythin...what belongs where...and why?
and the biggest question of all...why do i belong here?...do i really belong here?..i just want to be left alone...
i just wanna leave everything...but i dont want to move ahead...
i dont know anything...
i guess this is what i am...a question mark...

Forgot this 1...

this is actually the TV...VH1...was just idling around....n whoa!....i clicked a good one...

some pics i clickd..

The harder you hold onto things...the more they tend to move away from u...and even if they dont...after a time you tend to get away from them...

its like...repulsion WILL dominate...one day or the other....n then back to square one....trying to hold onto them...

but somehow, this times...its different.

my mind.

my thoughts.

i dont want to go back...and in any case...go back to what? to the stupid meetings and then the usual back bitching?

no.

not this time.

for this time it is different.

this time i want things to go away...or rather, i want to recede.

repulsion.

let it be.

Lost...

You scored as Sawyer.

On the outside you look like a rude, ignorant person, but you are really just misunderstood.Just remember two wrongs don't make a right.Revenge accomplishes nothing!

Sawyer 67%
Sayid 50%
Jack 50%
Sun 50%
Kate 50%
Michael 50%
Hurley 33%
Locke 17%
Claire 17%
Charlie 17%

What LOST Character Are You Most Like?
created with QuizFarm.com

why???
this question keeps killing...why cant there be a single peaceful day??
why am i here?

And I'd give up forever to touch you
Cuz I know that you feel me somehow
You're the closest to heaven that I'll ever be
And I don't want to go home right now

And all I can taste is this moment
And all I can breathe is your life
Cuz sooner or later it's over
I just don't want to miss you tonight

And I don't want the world to see me
Cuz I don't think that they'd understand
When everything's made to be broken
I just want you to know who I am

And you can't fight the tears that ain't coming
Or the moment of truth in your lies
When everything feels like the movies
Yeah, you'd bleed just to know you're alive

And I don't want the world to see me
Cuz I don't think that they'd understand
When everything's made to be broken
I just want you to know who I am

And I don't want the world to see me
Cuz I don't think that they'd understand
When everything's made to be broken
I just want you to know who I am

And I don't want the world to see me
Cuz I don't think that they'd understand
When everything's made to be broken
I just want you to know who I am

I just want you to know who I am
I just want you to know who I am
I just want you to know who I am

i am a fool...expectations kill again!!

The Day After Today !

if all goes well..then after 30 minutes from this time tomorrow, the scores would be in my hand...or at least in my ears from where the nervous system would transmit the information to the brain...and who knows how my reflexes would react!

i have this strange tendency of procrastinating work...now i dont know where to start revising stuff (yes, for a change...i have reached this stage of "revision" in my life...somewhat never done that from the past 3 years...engg after all...!)

so right now am left with:
- flicking pages...barrons..all the 3500 words...
- and blah blah...i know there would be loads left...

i hope i hope everything goes well tomorrow...i wish i wish...
:)

The current picture

Too much of chaos...things messed up...and I find myself standing in the middle of the room...trying to figure out where to begin...from where do i start putting back the fragments?..into the main picture again..so that i can see...and realise what is happening..
people on this planet (let us confine that to this city at the moment) have an incorrigible disease...they show a lot of interest in others' lives...such profound interst...had they been showing that in their lives...this nation...would have been at par with any other developed nation of the world..!

the rest on my personal blog...shouldnt be mentioning names here in public...!

Ahhh.... 2 more days!

dont actually know if this "ahhh" is an expression of relief or jitters...!
a higher probability is of the fact that it is a mixture of the two...both emotions entwined so thoroughly, its next to impossible to discern...
i dont even know how the preparation is... i mean...the score is sooooo fluctuating...one cant really conclude..n to speak the truth..others are more confident of my preparation than i myself am...!
lets see what happens....how things take a turn...hope they do for the better (score) !!
:

i am what i am...

“Why am I not in bed, like everyone else, dead to the world?
Why do I do this, live with the constant pain, the suffering, the sacrifice?
Why?
Because I can.
Because pain tells me I’m awake. Reminds me I’m alive.
Who am I?
I am the wrecker of steel. I am the crusher of mediocrity. I am the face of destiny. I am Animal...”

The Indian Search for EXTRAterrestrials

An unpardonable character of aliens is that they are spotted usually in white nations. It could be a prejudice influenced by an intergalactic understanding of the balance of power on this blue speck that floats somewhere in the outer reaches of a whirlpool galaxy that God is flushing right now, at the time of writing. After all, a simple interception of the most profitable films on Earth will suggest that no alien invasion is complete until the mayor of New York holds a press conference. Or more probably, alien sightings are the hallucinations of people with social security numbers who crave for fantastic mysteries because food comes easily to them. Whatever be the truth, ‘We are not alone’ is essentially a western anthem. But increasingly, Indians are joining this poignant quest that will one day change our philosophies, religions and the Miss Universe contest. Among these countrymen are respected scientists. But there are also endearing characters who are trying to prove that Ramayana’s battles, with flying machines and all that, were actually misunderstood records of alien contact. “And Ravana was an aeronautical engineer who learnt the technology from aliens,” according to a former professor of Indian Institute of Science.


The Balloon Over Hyderabad

There is a discomforting flaw in man’s many searches for life elsewhere. A space rover somewhere in Mars is searching for water. Telescopes on Earth are trying to spot long organic molecules in distant galaxies. Or they are waiting for a radio signal to arrive. Why does mankind presume that technology is a universal aspiration? Why must life elsewhere be organic? And dependent on water? There are Tamilians who can live without water. Some aliens, in all certainty, may not need it all. It is clear that man is not searching for aliens. Man is searching for man. It’s poignant. But what if, in the first place, all of humanity is extraterrestrial?
Jayant Narlikar, a much admired astrophysicist, was at the helm of a team that launched two balloons from a Hyderabad launch facility, to an altitude of about 42 km. The idea was to see if there are microbes at that height. The balloon’s altitude has a significance. Volcanic ash and factory pollutants that may carry microbes up into the atmosphere do not rise beyond 25 km. So the presence of microbes at the height of 42 km will suggest that they were not going up, they were coming down. From space. This is at the heart of what is called the Cosmic Ancestry Theory that says eternal spores carrying genetic material travel through the vastness of space for millions of years riding on orphaned comets. They are dormant agents of destiny that fall on different worlds. In some propitious circumstances, like on Earth, the life encoded inside the spores emerges. In time, species evolve. If this is true, we were all birthed somewhere far away, in what we call deep space and not in the primeval oceans of Earth.

The first balloon was launched over five years ago. The second went up a year back. These were huge astronomical balloons, 170 meters long. The balloons carried sterilised samplers that captured atmospheric air. “The results of the second experiment are awaited,” Narlikar says. Samples are being studied in India right now and the conclusions are expected by the end of this year. The first experiment yielded curious results. The Cardiff Lab in England had studied one set of samples and an Indian lab another. “I was not part of the first launch but I am given to understand that the Cardiff Lab said that it saw something. The Indian lab did not,” says RK Manchanda from the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, who was associated with the second experiment.


Red rain over Kerala

In 2001, between July and September, central Kerala experienced something very strange. There were sporadic red rains. Godfrey Louis, a physicist from Mahatma Gandhi University, has been studying the samples. His conclusions are disturbing. He has found biological cells that multiply at a temperature of 300º C, unprecedented on Earth. More curious is his claim that these cells do not have DNA. Never has a self replicating cell been discovered on Earth that does not have a DNA molecule.

“My hypothesis is that a comet, about 10-20 meters in width, weighing 50 tonnes disintegrated in the atmosphere. Remnant particles floated for days between 20 to 40 km above Earth, moving 500 meters per day in a downward travel.” And when they merged with the rain clouds, it poured red over Kerala. The research into red rain has fetched Louis international attention. One of the most famous proponents of the Cosmic Ancestry theory, Chandra Wickramasinghe, paid him a visit. The Cardiff Lab is studying the red rain samples, easing the burden of Louis who dipping into his modest resources for the research.


The signal will come

For many years, huge radio telescopes have gaped at the sky waiting for a radio wave signal from a civilisation which will be inclined to do that. One such telescope is the Arecibo in Puerto Rico which mails observational data by post to the University of California, Berkeley. A software created by the university studies this data which are millions of shuddering computer graphs that represent radio signals. The software tries to find anomalies in the graphs, a steep rise for instance that will represent a radio signal that is not caused by a heavenly body.

The software needs considerable space to scan all the data and that is made possible by what is called a distributed computing project which invites any PC user with a net connection anywhere in the world to lend his disc space. The volunteer downloads the software and it runs on his machine, as it does on over five million computers in the world, making it the largest computation in the history of mankind, according to the Guinness World Records. Hundreds of Indians are involved in this, from a boy aged eight to scores of men in their fifties. (Girls, it seems, seldom search for intelligent life). These participants do not need any computer expertise. They merely lend their computer time for the great cause.

India too has impressive radio telescopes, like the Giant Meterwave Radio Telescopes, an array of white monsters that stand one after the other in the middle of sheer desolation, near Pune. By studying the faint signals from the sky, they piece together a bold understanding of distant bodies. “But they do not search for ET,” says Govind Swarup, sometimes known as the father of radio astronomy in India. “I have tried to infuse the excitement of SETI in India. Met people. Tried to convince them. Gave lectures to students but it seems, in our country, even young people want to do what they think is serious science.”


Indra was an alien

The incurable tendency of many Indians to believe that this is a special land, once home to great cerebral advances, has also spawned a research into alien landings here during the vedic period. Such research is usually an interpretation of mythologies. Referring to flying machines and weapons in Mahabharata and Ramayana, a Sanskrit scholar announced some years ago, “These were space vehicles similar to the flying saucers.” Even a former professor of aeronautics from the Indian Institute of Science says after promised anonymity, “A reason why we were so superior in the olden days may have been because of a technology transfer from aliens. Our gods may have originally been representations of extraterrestrial visitors.”

It is possible that aliens, not Bangladeshis but proper extraterrestrials still visit the great country. And probably sweeten the Arabian Sea.

The Pigment of our Imagination !

Why are Indians, the world’s greatest racial profilers, pretending to be shocked when others profile them? Shobhan Saxena on his personal experiences

(from TOI dated 03/09/06)


The tip of the nozzle was cold like an icicle. As the man pressed the handgun against a twittering artery on my neck, the crawling train stopped with a jerk and his face became clear in the sweep of white light slicing through the coach. His red eyes scanned the twinge on my forehead through two holes in the blue hood on his face and his black finger quivered nervously on the trigger, sending a wave of shivers down my sweat-covered body. Then he spoke in a blood-curdling baritone: “I got a gun. You got something, brother?” I slipped two $100 bills into his left hand. He looked out, slunk through the sliding doors, turned back and said, “Thank you, bro.” With his green eyes piercing my face, the police officer asked me to describe the mugger. “Black man, about 6 feet, good built and glowering eyes,” I said. “This could be almost any black man in America. C’mon mister, move on,” he snarled. Robbed by a black guy and humiliated by a white cop on a damp night in Chicago, as I dragged my feet through the snow and a frosty gale, I wondered if they are all racists. Do they hate us, the brown-skins?

On the morning of 9/11, when I was fast asleep at home in Queens, New York, the melanin in my skin suddenly became deeper. Suddenly, fellow New Yorkers began to notice the shape of my eyes and the sharpness of my nose. Suddenly, the craggy hair on my face turned into a ‘Shiite’ beard.
At the Sports Bar in Madison Square Garden, two white blokes offered to buy me a drink: “You drink jet fuel, right?” Outside the Punjab restaurant in Long Island, a bunch of yobs reminded me of my nationality: “You bloody Paki, go back to your Poon-jaab.” At Lexington Avenue, a man blocked the door as I tried to board the train: “F*** off, you f****ing Arab.” Outside a grocery store in Washington DC, a drunken lout updated me on geo-politics: “Your Taliban is finished. We smashed your Kabul today.” And, on a flight from DC to JFK, an air hostess gave me a lesson in men’s room manners when I got up to go to the loo: “Don't move. Sit tight, it’s a short flight.”

With dark clouds of racial prejudice hanging over the City, I spent a few hours with Hardeep and his friends, the lads of Punjabi-By-Nature-Boys gang who rule the streets at night. They picked me from a dark corner in Jackson Heights. With his mighty rib cage boasting of a huge tattoo of two swords in semicircle and his headphones screaming a hate song, Hardeep played with the gas pedal as his BMW flew on Bhangra beats. They rolled spliffs and smashed empty beer bottles on the road. “So, what do you think is goin’ on here, this racial profiling and all,” I shot a question and they all began to talk at the same time. We’re tough guys, we no pansies. We’re not black. We’re not white. They all pick on us. They call us smelly Indians. We take no shit from no SOBs who call us FOBs. We ain’t afraid of no White trash. We don’t give no shit to no nigga. We gonna bust all Dot Busters. We ain’t afraid of no blood. We won’t let no Latino slut dime us out. Our life is tough, but we love pain. We wanna go out with a hole in our head. We hate our parents. They don’t know nothing. We hate everyone.

So, we hate them too. We always have, actually.

Many years ago, while studying in London, I used to work at an Indian restaurant in Hounslow for a couple of hours a day to make some money.

As I would sit behind the cash register and pass on the orders to the cooks in the kitchen, an old white man in blue pants, a grey tweed jacket and a black hat would be mopping the floor. His frail hands moved from side to side in a slow rhythm as Gulati, the café owner, hurled profanities at him in Punjabi. The man, fallen off the National Health Service and social security network, worked like a dog. He wiped the huge glass windows, mopped the floor, cleaned the tables, filled water jugs, removed the trays, carried massive grocery bags and put garbage in the trashcans as Gulati paid filthy tributes to his mother, sister and daughters. At night, just before we downed the shutter, Gulati would bark at him: “Babaji, roti kha lo,” and the man would wash his hands and look at me with his moist blue eyes. One day, as I gave him a plate of mutton chops, aloo patties, chickpeas and some green salad, I asked him how he understood Gulati’s command for dinner. “He is always insulting me, but when he asks me to have food he hisses pure hate. That’s how I know,” he said, shifting his gaze back to the mutton chops.

Our Sundays were so full of hate. In the morning, I would be at the Gurdwara with my old aunt. In the evening I would be at Glassy Junction, a Punjabi bar in Southhall. At both the places, the chatter was always the same: the white man is an evil and the black man is a devil.

In Birmingham, I met a middle-aged Indian man who wanted to slit the throat of his daughter because she had a black boyfriend. In Glasgow, I saw a Pakistani girl being kicked and dragged into a car by his brothers from the house of her white boyfriend. In Manhattan, I saw a black boy being punched because he gatecrashed a Basement Bhangra party.
We may not admit it, but we practise the worst kind of racism with others as well as within our society. Apart from ridiculing the vegetarians as ghass-phoos eaters, Imran Khan, that famous, Oxfordeducated, sexy, sultan of swing, is infamously on record for referring to India as the south “where we Pathans have always gone to screw women”. And in our part of the world, the alleged twice-borns carry a seething hatred for the lower castes and born-agains.

We practice racism in a subtle manner. We know it’s not in the colour of your skin. It’s not about biology. It’s about culture. Through caste and religion, we have institutionalised and legitimised racism. That’s why we have a culture of hate wielded by an equally strong culture of silence. That’s why we leave no opportunity to abuse a black man.

And look at the black man. Even when he robs you, he calls you ‘brother’.

yipeee.... (hope it continues)

yipeeee....even when a minute news shows up...i just start jumping...even though i know i shouldn't...
scoring good on the practice tests these days...hope the mark continues...
:)

rest...nothing much...just the same...slightly better though i would say...masks being revealed again...
girls....gosh!!>..i hate them...even more now...

Phew... !

a few days from now....not even 7...will have the GRE total in my hands...even the thought makes me shiver...how am i going to fare?...life has become so "ghissu" these days...all i do is do verbal activities...dad scolding me...and all tht keeps going on in my brain n synonyms...we 5-6 vella people of ece 2k3 are gossiping...and what goes on in my head again?...synonyms...!!

lol...but its good...finally am focussed on something...and this around...i dont want to screw up my career...landing up in igit was enough...not again...n job....well..uske liye toh main chhoti bachi hoon naaa? :p

so...even on this post i am back to talking gre!!>..not what i wanted to write...but i guess again its good that gre is dominating all other domains of my life right now....yes...ALL other!!...ummm...well...not exactly!!

ummm....had some negative thoughts in my mind...but i guess that will have to wait for sometime...not in a too negative mood today...

just pray that i do well.. :)
back to studies then i guess...my thoughts...just wait for a few more days.... :)

its goin down....

whoa!!...now i know what it feels like to be tensed...sort of an achievement for me...getting tensed...bt its not much of a pleasure...the feeling....not very pleasant...the date is drawing closer...and i still feel i dont know anything....math getting tougher..or rather smart...and verbal...!!...what about it??...
gre aint tough...but yes...i somehow need to regain that composure...

when i look at it...loads to go through...barrons n big book...
its like...either i have loads to do...or nothing at all...stuff happening at college too....and then school gang...what the fuck??...cant everything wait till i get over with gre and toefl??

:)

aaahhhhh....yes.....the breeze is blowing again...with that mild fragrance that can keep me smiling perpetually...and closing my eyes...i can hear those words ringing a bell in my heart...and i smile again...
:)
this is beautiful...